D2 = old, diverse skill trees & stat point allocation, dated graphics, creativity! (cube, ubers, crafting, builds, cows),
more forgiving and fun gameplay, 8 players in a game, NO requirement to be "online" to play the game,
epic item drops even at low levels are more frequent, farming is easier (bosses), ninja looting is possible (suck)

.... but that is just my opinion. I'm sure people will agree and disagree with the points I listed. Either way, Bliz/Activision did not capture my interest in D3 so I'm happy that D2 is still available to play online or offline.

Interesting that I found this topic today since I just "gave up" last night. Blizzard/Activision produced a game that frankly let me down. I admit that I came in with some preconceptions of an awesome D2 spinoff that would make me want to play for hours on end. Unfortunately, after being repeatedly raped in the face on inferno, I break down my dislike into 2 statements:

1. Blizzard made all classes melee range basically. No longer can you sit on the edge of a screen and kill mobs before they even appear on the screen. (orb, multishot, lightning trap, etc.) - No talent? sure! I agree .. and don't care. That was fun to me.

2. The AH. (gold or RMAH) Why? I can't kill anything without buying stuff off the AH. I don't want to buy off the AH. I didn't buy the game so that I could be a virtual eTrader in order to progress further. Sure .. some people may love this. They may even have the AH down to a science so it takes only "a few minutes" to find what you need/want. But I don't want this. However, I can't progress without using it. The drops that I get are always waaaaaaaay too low to be of any use for me at that level.

I don't expect my comments to magically change the game, sway opinions, are garner support. I'm just sharing my thoughts on where Blizzard failed for me. (opinion piece if you will)

FYI: Am I the only one that misses the Horadric cube. Who didn't like to create stuff? I loved the feeling of making something new that could be actually BETTER than what I have. The blacksmith ... does not compare.

Aside: Am I imagining it or has gems become a useless commodity now that they are never destroyed?

Great post Winged. This is the type of game info that the community lusts for.

The globes look awesome! You have any pics of the resource systems at like half full? Curious how the "swirling" effect would look. Does it always "swirl" up to the top of the globe, or only to the top of the amount of resources that you have.

Staying away from the Russia vs. the world line of conversation since I don't believe that war is the answer ...

Instead, I'll ask a simple question:
Even if Anonymous was successful in exposing/removing the corruption/lies of today's governments/organizations/society, don't you think that it would simply be replaced (eventually) by the same? (aka - History will repeat itself)

Guessing that people will say that we need to expose it, fix it, then maintain it. But the maintaining part is the tough one, since the organization performing the "checks" eventually grow bored/complacent and leave/turn to corruption. No? I thought that was human nature. Power corrupts. Least that was what I was taught (not that it's right).

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not for or against this. Just confused if the "solution" would remain a solution years down the road or if this is just a shift of power from one organization to another.

Hmmm ... I have only considered that Diablo III would fall in line with the other 2 in the series and be a hack-n-slash type of game. With that in mind, CDs don't exist in my view of what hack-n-slash games are. I admit that I like the no-boundries style of Diablo 2's mash-every-button-I-have .. but not everyone likes that. And I don't even think that Blizzard is happy with that mechanic. Soooo ...

If Blizzard is deviating from the traditional path of whack-a-mole style skills ... that's fine. I just have to wrap my head around it and change my play style. Besides, maybe the CD skill being theorized is so bloody awesome that it really would be OP if it wasn't on a CD. Muhahahaha *cough*

Torchlight is for the minigame/casual market. All the negative points you mentioned are true but when overlooking a game try to understand why the average rating for it was so high. For those looking for epic flow the addons help.

Agreed. I think the problem was that the "hardcore" (can I call them that?) gamers were looking for a game to fill the void between "good" games and stuck Torchlight in there because the reviews were decent. Eventually (not long), gamers realized that the game wasn't as polished as most games, it was annoyingly-cartoony in graphics (seeing as it was compared to the Diablo series), and had little deviation from a kill monsters - get gear - go deeper - kind of story line. (that worked for Diablo 1 ... but that was 15 years ago?)

I liked it merely for the distraction from wow for 1 month I admit. Then I shelved it and moved on.

To be honest I don't see a problem with D2-style tps either. Since you can't spam health potions anymore the only reason why you would want to go back to town would be to get a free health refill from an NPC (if that is still in the game). And if you actually put that much effort in not dying then so be it.

Agreed. I don't think that I really understand the root of why everyone is against TPs in the first though. I'm going to guess that it's maybe because it makes things too easy? Or because it allows people to "rush" other people? I thought that Blizzard didn't have any problem with the rushing aspect and if it's too easy .. um .. why not just not use that mechanic? No? Then people that want to use it can, while others don't have to.

I vaguely recalled something Bashiok said and did a search for it. I found a diablowiki reference:

Town Portals returned to the game during development in 2011, as revealed by Bashiok in a forum post. [2]

We’ve always been trying to see if we can create a better system than town portals, making waypoints the main travel back to town mechanic. But, it’s looking like it’s just simply more fun and a quality-of-life-nicety to be able to jump back to town from anywhere even if waypoints are all over the place. Plus it’s not really that hard to avoid the few pitfalls that TPs in Diablo II had.

Wouldn't this mean that Blizzard themselves don't necessarily have any issues with TPs(after struggling with it by the looks of it)? Again, maybe I'm missing the point of the discussion though? I thought that most people didn't like cool-downs and removing them completely from the game is certainly going to remove the "quality-of-life-nicety" that Bashiok was referring to.

Ok I wanted to start a post about what people will be doing the day diablo 3 hits stores, basicly imagine you went the the midnight release your holding your copy on the way to your computer.

-Who are you with

-What did you do untill midnight?

-Did you stop off for snacks,or anything or did you get to your computer in 15 seconds.

-What will you do while its installing

-Will you watch intro movies or skip to game play?

-Did you take time off work or are you pulling an all nighterr.

-Single player or Bnet first?

This is an imagination thread,its a game of sorts if you dont wanna play dont post.
alot of dfans including myself have waited along time for diablo 3 to be released
and im sure im not the only one thats planned it all in my head a thounsand times.

* I will be with a couple of my gaming buddies
* Drool with anticipation
* Yup - Gatorade for electrolytes and Peanut Butter sandwiches for energy! (or maybe Pizza)
* Read the manual and watch the installer (debate character class and name - eternal struggle!)
* Absolutely watch the intro - adds to the anticipation before playing
* Work? Pffft .. D3 has been released man! Screw work! (aka - yes, I will take 2 days off work)
* BNet for me. I enjoy the online experience so much more now that I have been exposed to it. Besides, I need to look for a guild!

I use Winblows 7 in order to keep with the times. But I can't stand a lot of the "features" that they offer admittingly. I found Windows XP out of all the releases to work best for me, but if the gaming market was to port to Linux/Unix - then I would jump there.

I know a buddy of mine that swears by the MAC (die-hard), but I just can't respect an O/S that created a 1 button mouse! (j/k)

Especially the aggressively promoted trade-in deals Gamestop and other similar stores offer, where they pocket all the money from the resale (often more than they get form new game sales, which is pretty messed up), and are basically screwing over both their customers and the developers, laughing all the way to the bank.

Wow. I didn't think of that until you just said it. I can't believe that I didn't clue in to that. If that is indeed the case, I'm not going to be buying my games second hand anymore considering that the prices are only about $5 - $10 cheaper anyway. I had no idea that the developer got ZERO from the resale like that. *bonk to head*

But in regards to the poll - I keep my games. But it is starting to take up a lot of room in the basement considering that I am still holding on to such things as my Atari 2600 and games.

Thank you all very much in helping to troubleshoot this issue. A fix appears to have been found. There was a new driver update at the beginning of May for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 (driver version 8.17.12.7533) that I wasn't aware of. I downloaded this, installed it and have played about 5 games without any issues of lag or latency. *aka sweet*

Running the program in compatibility mode (for winXP, etc) is not necessary and will only reduce performance.

What video mode did the video test suggest? Also, make sure to try the other video modes as well as your video card might not properly support Blizzard's suggestion.

Hmmmm. The only reason that I run the program in compatibility mode was because the game wouldn't run otherwise. The game attempted to start and locked up on a black screen. Putting it into compatibility mode was the only thing that seemed to fix it (back when I was troubleshooting it). I'll revisit that tonight to see if I can run it with compat mode.

The video mode suggested 3D mode (I understand from reading other posts that the tool will suggest this for almost any computer today that supports 3D). I'll try the 2D mode (since there were only 2 suggestions from the video test) tonight as well.

Great post Winged. This is the type of game info that the community lusts for.

The globes look awesome! You have any pics of the resource systems at like half full? Curious how the "swirling" effect would look. Does it always "swirl" up to the top of the globe, or only to the top of the amount of resources that you have.

Some options are really interesting, but I just want to say a Massive NO to the "Top Tier Gear" buying stuff not available through the game, worst thing ever.

I agree complete with that statement. This would make the game feel like one of those cheap free-to-play MMO games that people play online for about 1 week before they realize that you have to pay for this and that ... etc. I admit that if this was to become the norm for the game, I would have to take off my Diablo-for-life fanboy hat.

I think that the "No Store" option is best, but probably pretty hard to maintain with the number of hackers out there seeing the potential for money to be made. I would be fine with the "Blizzard Store" or "In-Game Store" (what we have now), as I can ignore those credit-card warriors if need be.